DTV DVR Review

[Sandan]

Ok I've had it for a while now and I think I can say that compared to a Tivo it stinks.

On a Tivo the design goal is to make a user friendly device. It clear what direct TV's design goals are.

1. make it more difficult to skip commercials
2. See the ads they put all over the place

If you compare that functions they look close on paper, but on the HR-20 they just don't work as well. Mostly so they can save screen real estate for the primary design goals.

Does it work yes and the picture quality is amazing but but man it sucks by comparison. Sucks bad enough that if cable here ever gets a similar channel lineup and I can use a Tivo, I will switch.

This SOB is a deal killer if I had any realistic alternative which I don't hence they can sell these PoS boxes.

 

[Linderbee]

I feel your pain. I had to go from Dish Network DVR to Cox DVR & holy crap do I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. So much so that's another fairly major part of the reason I don't watch much tv anymore. I've always wanted Tivo. Someday, someday...

 

[Darth Llama]

I feel your pain. I had to go from Dish Network DVR to Cox DVR & holy crap do I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. So much so that's another fairly major part of the reason I don't watch much tv anymore. I've always wanted Tivo. Someday, someday...

Can I ask why the Cox DVR is so much worse? I have the Cox one and I like it, but I know nothing about the Dish Network one. The only thing I don't like about my DVR is that I can't just tell it to not record the comercials. Or if I can, I have no idea how anyway. Why is the Dish one so much better?

We have dish network at my job and it's the worst service I have ever seen. It craps out at least twice a day, and it sucks if you watch TV in the middle of the night (I work 3rd shift) because they update their TV directory overnight and it takes forever. So far, I have seen nothing I like from Dish.

 

[Linderbee]

I had it over a year and do not recall ever being without tv. The Dish dvr is just much more user friendly. Biggest difference for me is that if I wanted to record something I was watching, I pushed one button..."record". It popped up a window saying something like, "record remainder of event?" and I hit okay & it was done. Cox, you have to go through the whole stupid process, start time, end time, how frequent, etc., etc. Usually when I want to record what I'm watching it's because I have to leave, and don't have the time to sit & do all that crap. I don't like the way the menu is set up...it's just...bad. Dish's was just much more intelligently designed, that's all. Sorry it's hard for me to explain.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

I had it over a year and do not recall ever being without tv. The Dish dvr is just much more user friendly. Biggest difference for me is that if I wanted to record something I was watching, I pushed one button..."record". It popped up a window saying something like, "record remainder of event?" and I hit okay & it was done. Cox, you have to go through the whole stupid process, start time, end time, how frequent, etc., etc. Usually when I want to record what I'm watching it's because I have to leave, and don't have the time to sit & do all that crap. I don't like the way the menu is set up...it's just...bad. Dish's was just much more intelligently designed, that's all. Sorry it's hard for me to explain.

Not true. If you are watching a show that you want to record, it will automatically give you the start and ending times, but you don't have to modify them. All you have to do is "accept" and the show records, just like Dish. Hit the Record button, hit the A button. That's it.

They have that option come up for the times when you want to record 2 minutes into the next show, so it doesn't cut anything off.

 

[Sandan]

Its tought to quantify the issue on this PoS, One good example is the list of recorded shows.

On paper they look pretty much the same. They both give you the ability to store your shows in groups so that all Inside the NFL say are in the same location.

The difference mostly goes back the to the design objectives of the HR-20.

On the Tivo, the list of recorded shows is fills the entire screen, that plus the font makes it so you can see a lot of what you have recorded at one glance.

Conversely on the HR-20 they save a large part of the screen real estate for DTV logos and other adverts. This means that the space dedicated to looking for shows is rather small, no very small. This means you have to scroll trough a lot.

 

[Sandan]

Sounds like Cox's DVR is worse than DTV's ?

I thought Cox was switching to Tivo ?

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Sounds like Cox's DVR is worse than DTV's ?

I thought Cox was switching to Tivo ?

Cox isn't switching to TIVO that I heard.

 

[Sandan]

I never investigated as their channel lineup isn't as good and I didn't realize how bad this PoS would suck.

That and Cox pegs the [lack of] customer service meter

 

[Linderbee]

Not true. If you are watching a show that you want to record, it will automatically give you the start and ending times, but you don't have to modify them. All you have to do is "accept" and the show records, just like Dish. Hit the Record button, hit the A button. That's it.

They have that option come up for the times when you want to record 2 minutes into the next show, so it doesn't cut anything off.

So why didn't you tell me this the last time I was bitching about it???

Still like Dish's better. That was just one example, but I thank you for that.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

So why didn't you tell me this the last time I was bitching about it???

Still like Dish's better. That was just one example, but I thank you for that.

I thought you were bitching that it didn't automatically 2 minutes into the next show?

 

[Linderbee]

I thought you were bitching that it didn't automatically 2 minutes into the next show?

that was a different bitch session.

That reminds me...my other big bitch about Cox. I set up Heroes to record every episode. (what you're talking about above), and after the first couple of episodes I realize it's not recording 2 min before & 2 min after, and the show is getting cut off. So I went in & modified the start/stop times on it, saved the changes...next week, same thing. Thought maybe I screwed it up...so I did it again, being very careful to do it right. Still didn't actually 'save' my changes.

Stupid Cox & their stupid dvr.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

that was a different bitch session.

That reminds me...my other big bitch about Cox. I set up Heroes to record every episode. (what you're talking about above), and after the first couple of episodes I realize it's not recording 2 min before & 2 min after, and the show is getting cut off. So I went in & modified the start/stop times on it, saved the changes...next week, same thing. Thought maybe I screwed it up...so I did it again, being very careful to do it right. Still didn't actually 'save' my changes.

Stupid Cox & their stupid dvr.

I'll have to take a look at it for you.

 

[Linderbee]

I'll have to take a look at it for you.

 

[Bada0Bing]

that was a different bitch session.

That reminds me...my other big bitch about Cox. I set up Heroes to record every episode. (what you're talking about above), and after the first couple of episodes I realize it's not recording 2 min before & 2 min after, and the show is getting cut off. So I went in & modified the start/stop times on it, saved the changes...next week, same thing. Thought maybe I screwed it up...so I did it again, being very careful to do it right. Still didn't actually 'save' my changes.

Stupid Cox & their stupid dvr.

That's odd. I've never tried it on a regular tv show, but I have my cox dvr set to record all nba games on the 2 channels that show suns games and to add an hour to the recording. It always adds an hour to the recording. I'll have to try this on one of my history channel shows.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

That's odd. I've never tried it on a regular tv show, but I have my cox dvr set to record all nba games on the 2 channels that show suns games and to add an hour to the recording. It always adds an hour to the recording. I'll have to try this on one of my history channel shows.

I did this too for a while, adding a half an hour. The problem is that I record the games in HD, so Mojo HD also records other games during the week. It was causing my DVR to fill up very quickly, and I don't have any SATA drives to increase the recording space.

 

[Bada0Bing]

I did this too for a while, adding a half an hour. The problem is that I record the games in HD, so Mojo HD also records other games during the week. It was causing my DVR to fill up very quickly, and I don't have any SATA drives to increase the recording space.

Yeah, I just upgraged to HD a few weeks ago and realized I have to be really careful to delete those other games pretty quickly.

 

[Linderbee]

That's odd. I've never tried it on a regular tv show, but I have my cox dvr set to record all nba games on the 2 channels that show suns games and to add an hour to the recording. It always adds an hour to the recording. I'll have to try this on one of my history channel shows.

I think the problem was that I had already set it up to "record all". I was modifying the start/stop times on what I had already told it to record. Had I done it from the get-go, I don't think it would have been an issue. It was because I was going in after the fact (for future episodes), I believe.

 

[Darth Llama]

that was a different bitch session.

That reminds me...my other big bitch about Cox. I set up Heroes to record every episode. (what you're talking about above), and after the first couple of episodes I realize it's not recording 2 min before & 2 min after, and the show is getting cut off. So I went in & modified the start/stop times on it, saved the changes...next week, same thing. Thought maybe I screwed it up...so I did it again, being very careful to do it right. Still didn't actually 'save' my changes.

Stupid Cox & their stupid dvr.

Ok, mine did that exact same thing. There was a show that I recorded every Monday, and I just manually set the time every week. The show never ends right on the hour, so I set it 15 min after the scheduled stop time. Sure enough, if I schedule it for every week, it doesn't take my custom time setting, so I have to set it manually every week.

Pain in the ass.

I'm sure there is a way around it, I just haven't figured it out yet.

 

[Linderbee]

Oh, and what I loved about Dish & hate about Cox is that what I record in my living room I can't watch in my bedroom. Dish's were connected, Cox I can only watch what's recorded in my LR in my LR, and what's recorded in my bedroom, in my bedroom. Buncha crap.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Oh, and what I loved about Dish & hate about Cox is that what I record in my living room I can't watch in my bedroom. Dish's were connected, Cox I can only watch what's recorded in my LR in my LR, and what's recorded in my bedroom, in my bedroom. Buncha crap.

Now that is one thing that I doubt you ever get from Cox, unless they do go TIVO-esque someday.

 

[Bada0Bing]

I think the problem was that I had already set it up to "record all". I was modifying the start/stop times on what I had already told it to record. Had I done it from the get-go, I don't think it would have been an issue. It was because I was going in after the fact (for future episodes), I believe.

Allright, I'm on a mission to solve this conundrum. I record "all episodes" of Our Generation on the history channel. I had two episodes scheduled to record in the next 7 days. I modified the first scheduled recording by adding two minutes to the start time and two minutes to the end time. After saving my manual changes to the first scheduled recording, it automatically applied my changes to the second scheduled recording.

Now, the real test will be to see if it applies these modifications to any new episodes it adds to my to-be-recorded queue.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Allright, I'm on a mission to solve this conundrum. I record "all episodes" of Our Generation on the history channel. I had two episodes scheduled to record in the next 7 days. I modified the first scheduled recording by adding two minutes to the start time and two minutes to the end time. After saving my manual changes to the first scheduled recording, it automatically applied my changes to the second scheduled recording.

Now, the real test will be to see if it applies these modifications to any new episodes it adds to my to-be-recorded queue.

why don't you find something that is just about to begin, decide to record it, and then modify the time?

 

[Pariah]

While I love TiVo, I like my DTV HD DVR okay. It took a little geteting usd to the navigation at first, but I don't think I have any adverts on my "list" screen and the mechanics of it work just fine...with the excepton of the occasional freeze-up that requires a re-boot.

 

[Linderbee]

Allright, I'm on a mission to solve this conundrum. I record "all episodes" of Our Generation on the history channel. I had two episodes scheduled to record in the next 7 days. I modified the first scheduled recording by adding two minutes to the start time and two minutes to the end time. After saving my manual changes to the first scheduled recording, it automatically applied my changes to the second scheduled recording.

Now, the real test will be to see if it applies these modifications to any new episodes it adds to my to-be-recorded queue.

Ah, yes...but does it actually DO your changes? When they go to record, will it actually be 2 min before & two minutes after? Mine SHOWED that it saved the changes, but when it came to recording time, it didn't do them.

I could just have a piece of crap box, too, that needs to be replaced. I'm curious to see what happens with yours. If it worked for you, then it's my box.